By GB News (World News) | Created at 2025-04-04 15:51:27 | Updated at 2025-04-05 04:25:02
12 hours ago
Conservative MP Robbie Moore has launched a scathing attack on the Labour Government, accusing them of using "smoke and mirrors" when dealing with grooming gangs by "watering down funding" for localised inquiries into the crimes.
Taking to social media, the Tory minister claimed Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and the Government have been "secretly gutting each of their promises to victims behind closed doors", branding their entire rape gang strategy a "sham".
Robbie Moore has hit out at Labour's latest grooming gangs 'sham' after 'watering down' funding
PA / GB News
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has told GB News that there is a sense of 'betrayal' among grooming gang victims
GB News
Moore explained: "This is a really important amendment that the Conservative Party have put will be putting forward in the Police and Crime Bill, quite rightly, which will put every Labour MP in a position of having to vote for our amendment.
"It is right, as we have been advocating for, to have a national, statutory based rape gang inquiry, so we can try and provide that reassurance to those victims, those survivors, and lead to proper justice being delivered."
Highlighting his fight for an inquiry in his constituency of Keighley, Moore emphasised that there are "50 towns" which have been impacted by grooming gangs, with his own council voting down a localised inquiry.
Moore stated: "I've been advocating to have this in Keighley, where I represent, and across the wider Bradford district, where I've consistently made concerns around the Bradford district dwarfing the scale of this absolutely horrendous crime.
Moore told GB News that the Labour Government's latest move is more 'smoke and mirrors' against voters
GB News
"The Conservative group put forward a vote on Bradford Council for having an inquiry and backing that national inquiry, and all Labour councillors on Bradford Council voted against it. Now we're taking it national. We want a national rape gangs inquiry."
In a direct plea to the Government to take further action on grooming gangs, Moore concluded: "Every Labour MP will be asked to vote for it. I urge them to join us and vote for us on this, because this is a national scandal. It should never have got to this stage.
"I only hope that every single Labour MP, indeed every MP, joins with us and getting behind that amendment so that again, we can reinstall trust back in the system, serve the justice that needs to be done and rebuild that relationship between the state and those organisations that have safeguarding responsibilities with the victims ,and those survivors that have had this heinous crime impacting them for far, far too long."
In a statement, a Labour Party spokesman has said in response: "Kemi Badenoch spent almost two years in the run up to the election as the Minister for Women and Equalities, and Chris Philp spent the same period as the Minister for Policing and Crime. Not once in that time did either of them mention the issue of grooming gangs in any of their speeches in the House of Commons.
"Not once did they hold a meeting with any external individual or organisation to discuss the issue of grooming gangs. Not one victim, not one expert on social abuse, not one local authority, and not one local police force."
